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Shawn James Hamilton is escorted from a hearing Thursday morning in Wilkes-Barre. Mark Moran / The Citizens' Voice

The two-day killing spree began in broad daylight on a Wilkes-Barre street, investigators said. It ended three months later in a Montgomery County hospital room where the first, seemingly unrelated, shooting victim succumbed to a grave head wound.

Shawn James Hamilton burst from a car, investigators said, ran a few blocks to Jay Street and fired a flurry of gunshots at Kenyatta Hughston, an acquaintance from the local heroin trade, around noon July 6. One of the bullets pierced Hughston's skull, knocking him to the ground and spiraling him toward a slow but certain death - the first of four investigators have now linked to the 19-year-old Hamilton.

Hamilton rushed back to the car after wounding Hughston, investigators said, and implored the friend behind the wheel: "Let's get out of here! Come on!"

Despite Hamilton's anxiety, the spree continued the next night, investigators said, as Hughston clung to life at Geisinger Wyoming Valley Medical Center in Plains Township. Hamilton and his brother, Sawud Davis, opened fire on an apartment in Plymouth, investigators said, instantly killing three people and severely injuring a fourth.

Hughston, 22, succumbed to his injuries in October and Thursday investigators charged Hamilton with a fourth murder. No other defendant in Luzerne County has been suspected in so many killings at once since Hugo Selenski, who is facing trial for a second set of murders after winning an acquittal in 2006 for two others.

Hamilton has "obviously demonstrated a callousness that we haven't seen in quite some time," Luzerne County First Assistant District Attorney Sam Sanguedolce said Thursday after investigators charged Hamilton with a fourth open count of criminal homicide. "There's no telling, had he not been caught, what he would be capable of."

Hamilton, jailed without bail since his arrest shortly after the Plymouth killings, appeared Thursday at a brief arraignment in Wilkes-Barre before Senior Magisterial District Judge Thomas Sharkey. Hamilton, dressed in a green jail jumpsuit, said little and he came and went from the courtroom, surrounded by Wilkes-Barre police officers and county detectives.

Sharkey scheduled a preliminary hearing for Wednesday before Magisterial District Judge Martin Kane and ordered Hamilton returned to the Luzerne County Correctional Facility.

Hamilton and Davis, 16, face three counts of criminal homicide in the deaths of Lisa Abaunza, 15, Bradley James Swartwood, 21, and Nicolas Robert Maldonado, 17. They are both charged with attempted homicide in the critical wounding of Nicolas Maldonado's brother Danny Maldonado II, 19, who also lived in the Plymouth apartment where the shooting occurred.

Hamilton will face the death penalty for the Plymouth killings, prosecutors said Monday. A Luzerne County jury has not sentenced a defendant to death since the 1990s, but the string of killings linked to Hamilton "makes a compelling case for it," former Deputy District Attorney David Pedri said.

The potential for a death sentence could compel Hamilton to negotiate a plea agreement, Pedri said. A life sentence would allow Hamilton to remain in the general prison population. The death penalty, even with so few executions in Pennsylvania, would force him to remain in solitary confinement 23 hours per day.

Hours after the Plymouth shootings, investigators said, Hamilton and Davis went to Geisinger Wyoming Valley Medical Center to visit Hughston, whom Hamilton and Davis described as a "brother" and a "cousin."

Hughston's mother did not recognize Hamilton or Davis and quickly alerted the staff at the Plains Township hospital to prevent them from entering the intensive care unit where her son lie in grave condition, Sanguedolce said.

Within days, according to a probable cause affidavit filed Thursday, investigators identified Hamilton as a suspect in Hughston's shooting. Over the next few months, as Hughston succumbed to his wounds and the Plymouth case proceeded, the connections between the cases and the proximity of Hughston and his suspected killer became clearer.

A witness identified as Joseph Tinney told investigators he drove Hamilton and Davis to Jay Street on July 3 so they could obtain heroin from Hughston. Tinney said he purchased heroin from Hamilton on July 4 and 5 around 10:30 a.m. and drove Hamilton and Davis to Geisinger Wyoming Valley after the Plymouth shooting on July 7.

Investigators said they recovered two .40-caliber shell casings and one bullet projectile from the street where Hughston was shot. The casings, investigators said, were "positively identified" as being fired from a Smith and Wesson pistoled recovered from Hamilton's Nanticoke home. Blood found on a pair of sneakers at Hamilton's home matched Hughston, investigators said.

msisak@citizensvoice.com

570-821-2061, @cvmikesisak

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